Islanders in the Empire

Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawaiâ€˜i

JoAnne Poblete

Publication Year: 2014

In the early 1900s, workers from new U.S. colonies in the Philippines and Puerto Rico held unusual legal status. Denied citizenship, they nonetheless had the right to move freely in and out of U.S. jurisdiction. As a result, Filipinos and Puerto Ricans could seek jobs in the United States and its territories despite the anti-immigration policies in place at the time.JoAnna Poblete's Islanders in the Empire: Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawai'i takes an in-depth look at how the two groups fared in a third new colony, Hawai'i. Using plantation documents, missionary records, government documents, and oral histories, Poblete analyzes how the workers interacted with Hawaiian government structures and businesses, how U.S. policies for colonial workers differed from those for citizens or foreigners, and how policies aided corporate and imperial interests.A rare tandem study of two groups at work on foreign soil, Islanders in the Empire offers a new perspective on American imperialism and labor issues of the era.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

For more than ten years of my life, I have been lucky to work
with many amazing people to develop, create, and publish this project. I
was fortunate to gain critical funding for this multisite research effort from a
variety of programs and institutions, including the UC Pacific Rim Research...

Introduction: Defining U.S. Colonial Experiences: The Long History of U.S. Expansionism

In 1901, Puerto Rican Alberto E. Minvielle played overlapping
and contradictory roles as a hospital assistant, interpreter, and general helper
for the Ola‘a plantation on the east side of the island of Hawai‘i while also
unofficially leading Puerto Rican laborers at this location and contributing...

1. Letters Home: The Failure of Puerto Rican Recruitment

On August 7 and 8, 1899, the San Ciriaco hurricane swept through
Puerto Rico with winds up to one hundred miles per hour. Twenty-eight
days of torrential rain caused approximately thirty-four hundred fatalities,
massive flooding, and at least $7 million dollars in agricultural damage. Tens...

2. Flexible and Accomodating: Successful Recruitment and Renention of Filipinos

On January 8, 1921, Matias Miguel arrived at the Port of Honolulu
as a sugar plantation labor recruit from San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, Philippines.
In 1926, he returned to the Philippines to get married, then traveled
back to the Hawaiian Islands with his wife Lorraine that same year. In 1930...

3. Indefinite Dependence: U.S. Control over Puerto Rican Labor Complaints

In 1919, after eighteen years of difficult sugar plantation field work,
Pedro Guzman signed a labor complaint with twenty-five other Puerto Ricans
at the Honoka‘a plantation about twenty-eight miles up the coast from
Hakalau on the island of Hawai‘i. During this era of growing immigration...

When boiling tar accidentally fell on Victorino Laino’s leg while
he worked at the Ola‘a plantation, Laino sent a complaint about his treatment
to Cayetano Ligot. As the new Philippine resident labor commissioner living
and working in Honolulu, Ligot read Laino’s letter in his Honolulu office...

In reaction to the low value of sugar in 1921, Hawai‘i sugar plantations
cut worker wages up to 20 percent. Before such pay reductions, intra-colonial
Filipino laborers already struggled to save enough of their salary
to send monetary remittances to their loved ones in the Philippines. These...

6. Limited Leadership: Roles of Puerto Rican Labor Agents in the Plantation Community

In 1901, many Puerto Ricans on the island of Hawai‘i approached
Florentin Souza for help. He said, “Knowing their country, their habits and
their language, the Porto Ricans have found their way to me, with a great
variety of requests.”1 As Spanish speakers in the English-speaking U.S. Territory...

Conclusion: Current Struggles against U.S. Colonialism and Empire

Islanders in the Empire challenges studies of U.S. history to move
beyond the standard narrative that centers on the forty-eight contiguous
states. Most people view the history of sugar plantation labor in Hawai‘i as
an interesting sidebar to U.S. history. Such a marginalization of this chain of...

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